A.K. Smiley Public Library

Serving the City of Redlands, California since 1894

Established in 1894, A.K. Smiley Public Library has served generations of patrons in the City of Redlands and beyond. The only “admission fee” is curiosity. Lifelong learning is at the center of activity in the beautiful, historic building and attractive grounds!

New Medicine Series

 

Interesting Stories and Characters in the History of Medicine

A.K. Smiley Public Library is proud to announce a weekly medical series available this fall.  The courses will be held in the Assembly Room at A.K. Smiley Public Library located at 125 W. Vine Street, Redlands, CA.  Courses will start Wednesday, September 25 and end Wednesday, November 20. The course is free to the public.

There will be nine 90-minute sessions at 6:30 on Wednesday evenings. Each session will consist of two 30-minute presentations with a break between and plenty of time for questions and discussion. Each class will stand on its own — missing a class will not impair your ability to understand the next one.

Presentations will be informal and will include many stories about people, inventions, discoveries, controversies, mistakes, and triumphs.

Topics covered will include:

Sept 25

  • The art of medicine through the ages: the four humors, so-called “heroic medicine,” comforting the sick, predicting outcomes
  • Anatomy: vivisection, dissection, illustrations, grave robbing, cadavers

Oct 2

  • Physiology: body systems and how they function
  • Life expectancy: causes of disease and death

Oct 9

  • Surgery: barbers, pain and anesthesia, technology
  • Infections: types, discovery and treatment

Oct 16

  • Public health: water pollution, epidemics, quarantines, mandates
  • Therapeutics: drugs, the FDA, food supplements, natural remedies, herbs, snake oil

Oct 23

  • The practice of medicine: medical education, licensing, regulations, earning a living
  • Financing health care through the ages: patients, charity, governments, hospitals, insurance

Oct 30

  • Pregnancy: childbirth, breast feeding, dangers and complications
  • Life issues: abortion, birth control, infertility and IVF, frozen sperms and eggs and embryos, donors, eugenics

Nov 6

  • Pediatrics: newborns, “childhood diseases”, vaccines, seizures, autism, orphans, birth defects
  • Mental illness: asylums, analysis, surgical procedures, medications, dementia

Nov 13

  • Nobel prizes for medicine: deserved and undeserved
  • Medical research: ethics, animals, self-experimentation, informed consent, the placebo effect, “bad science,” disinformation

Nov 20

  • Health problems of our presidents: reflections of their times
  • Changes during and stories from my 50 years in medicine: you couldn’t make some of this stuff up!

About the Presenter:

Bill Patton, MD is Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Loma Linda University School of Medicine.   He has taught there for almost 50 years, and served as department chair, chief of reproductive endocrinology and infertility, and director of student education for the  OB/GYN department.

Since retirement from active medical practice, Dr. Patton has continued to teach medical students, residents, and faculty on a regular basis.  He has lectured to numerous community groups on the history of medicine and current issues in medicine.